I Miss You, Moron
by Spoilerarlert
Summary: In the windy city of Chicago, Annie finds herself drawn to Eren Jaeger, her medical school classmate whose electric demeanor fascinates her. On the other side of the globe, Mikasa, a talented war correspondent, dodges gunfire every day in the shattered country of Syria. She returns home to discover that the boy she loves has moved on in the months that she was away. Modern AU
1. A Royal PIA Meets Democracy

**CHAPTER I | A Royal PIA Meets Democracy  
** _Annie_

He sits down two stools away from me. Gruffly orders whiskey on the rocks and digs into the stale pretzels on the bar.

His hair is unruly and hangs just over his eyes, and he is drowning in a gray sweatshirt. A ratty, old scarf the color of red wine hangs loosely around his neck. The spitting image of a washed-up college student. Rattling the pretzels, his phone glows up, buzzing once. But he ignores it, taking a sip, forming a grimace, picking at a loose thread on his scarf.

I've decided that he's either one of the two: A) your classic "I majored in Italian Literature, and while donning gladiator gear and pretending to spar with my colleagues was fun, I'm in a semi-existential crisis where I don't know what I'm doing with this deadweight degree, and, oh, I'm also drowning in student loans, so fuck me" case or B) the poster child of a dark, brooding lover who had his heartstrings ripped clean out of his ribcage.

Another buzz. The pretzels quiver. Whiskey is slurped. A thread is tugged.

You might be thinking: "Okay. He seems pathetic. Sure, let's assume so, but what does that say about _you_ , Annie? Sitting alone at a bar on a Wednesday night, shooting a glare at whatever horny dude steps within a five-foot radius of you? And not to mention you've got to cough up something that resembles a midterm paper in… T-minus six hours?"

To that, I reply: "Noted."

I gave this whole hook-up culture a shot, but after a month of dealing with pissbabies who don't understand the concept of the "one-night stand," I got bored. The free drinks I scored were not worth the cost of clumsy men lacking an ounce of technique. I'm here tonight (and almost every other night of the week) because martinis are great. Martinis are my lifeblood, the fuel that'll help me crank this paper out in an hour flat. Also, Bertholdt, who's manning the bar, gives me an enormous discount.

So with that, I concur: I am what society considers to be _lame_. But I get essentially free martinis. And I have a 3.7. Being _lame_ rocks, bitches.

"Hey, uh, Annie!"

I glance up. It's Bert, wiping at a Scotch glass, eyeing me with that whimpering, puppy-dog look. I stare at him, giving him the floor.

"So, um," he begins, sweat already breaking out across his forehead. Poor guy. "How are you doing tonight?"

I shrug, glancing back over at Sweatshirt Boy. His drink is half gone already. As are the pretzels.

"Still breathing," I say, looking Bert directly in the eye.

He crumples, quickly averting his gaze. A blush creeps up his neck. Still entertaining as ever. "Ah, that's… good to hear," he manages before ducking away to pour a drink.

As painfully awkward as he is, we've gotta give him some credit. A month ago, he'd turn into a human puddle at eye contact. Now he's capable of forcing out a five-word response, and _then_ turning into a puddle. It's weird. He's fine serving other customers; some may even consider him to be a charming bartender. But when I walk in, he's a fucking mess. Maybe my order is too complicated.

The bar is now rumbling, creating ripples in my martini. The pretzels are all gone, leaving a few grains of salt shaking in the little ceramic plate. A red thread hangs loose, vulnerable.

"Another one?" Bert asks, gesturing towards Sweatshirt Boy's empty glass.

Sweatshirt Boy, ignoring his phone, nods.

"Are you gonna take that call?" I ask, stirring my drink with a toothpick that once impaled an olive garnish.

Sweatshirt Boy twists around and looks at me with a startling pair of electric eyes. His face is tired. His shoulders are hunched. But those eyes are alive.

"Why does it matter to you?" he grits out, taking another sip and bringing his glass down with a _clink_.

I wasn't expecting him to bristle like this. Intriguing.

"Well, if you're gonna play the passive-aggressive card and ignore your girlfriend," I said, deciding on Option B, "at least have the decency to put it on silent."

He snorts, entering his passcode and turning off the vibration. Smirking, he waves his silenced phone in front of my face. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic," I reply, draining my glass.

I can feel his eyes on me, that electric turquoise running a current through me. Trying to read my intentions. I construct walls, a master of this craft by now, but something tells me that he's worming through the smallest cracks. In his hand, the phone glows to life, receiving yet another call. The contact photo of a girl flashes briefly on the screen, and from that glimpse, she seemed pretty. Dark hair, dark eyes. Someone I'd probably want to shove out a window.

"She's calling again," I inform him.

"I know," he says, rejecting the call. "She's a royal pain."

"So are most girls," I chime in.

Sweatshirt Boy lets out a bitter laugh. "I guess that makes her the queen of them all."

"Debatable." I motion to Bert. Shakily, he refills my glass to the brim, adding another shish-kebabbed olive. I look back over at Sweatshirt Boy, who's tracing the rim of his whiskey with a finger.

"What do you mean?" he asks, casting me a sidelong glance.

"I'm a contender for that position." I chew on the olive thoughtfully before tossing the toothpick into the empty pretzel bowl.

"For royalest pain-in-the-ass?"

"Right."

"I didn't know it was a democratic process," he mutters. "I was under the impression that all signs point to one person, and they take the crown. Kinda like a mandate-of-heaven type of ritual."

"Wrong. I've got Bert's vote. Right, Bert?" I call.

Bertholdt stiffens at the mention of his name. A few droplets of vodka spill over the bar. A lime slice plummets to the ground. A middle-aged customer grimaces. "Um, yeah?"

"Nothing."

"So are you gonna try to sway me for my vote?" Sweatshirt Boy inquires, cracking a small smile.

"Nope," I hop off the stool, grabbing my coat and purse. I clap a wad of bills on the bar. "I've got a paper to bullshit. Do me a favor and finish that martini."

As I make my way towards the exit, the boy follows me with his eyes. "Hold up, thanks, but I didn't get your name."

I hesitate. I sift through the personas I've donned over the years. There's Wendy the fashion blogger, estranged from her family after embarking on a journey to "explore herself" (Bert cringes the most at this one). Christina, eager to sleep her way up the corporate ladder, in hopes of snagging a six-figure mahogany desk job (this one's hard because I actually have to skim the _Wall Street Journal_ , which is as appealing as sawdust to me). Stephanie, the country girl from Tennessee who can fire a shotgun in one hand and wrestle a hog in the other (yes, people actually fall for this one, especially if I'm wearing an awful braided-pigtail hairdo).

Living a normal, singular life just isn't interesting to me. I'd feel too run-of-the-mill, like a rank-and-file cog of the Chicagoan machine. People squeeze into these comfy, little niches and rot there.

But despite everything, I introduce myself to him as Annie. He tells me his name is Eren. Eren Jaeger. As it turns out, he's in my Immunology class.

Later, as I tack on the last citation to my paper, I can't help but recall that flicker in Eren, a flicker that I rarely see in the dumb sheep milling about this city. As I grant myself a three-hour nap before dragging myself to the lecture hall, I can't help but wonder how much more interesting my evening could've been if I sat down for another thirty minutes with this Eren Jaeger.

* * *

 _Why do people try so hard?_

I'm watching him from across the lecture hall. His eyes are glued to the presentation slides, actually absorbing everything Dr. Zoe's prattling off. His hand scribbles furiously in his notebook. Each diagram, each point, each fact. He's the one who asks those questions that stir up a classwide discussion, shooting his hand up with this annoying eagerness that makes me want to puke.

I turn back to my computer screen, where I have one Word document up for typing down whatever's on the slides and another window for a movie I'm streaming silently with subtitles. (My personal rating: -75/10. Would recommend if you'd like shitty CGI effects to disintegrate your brain cells over the course of eighty minutes.)

After Dr. Zoe (she prefers that we call her on a first-name basis, Hanji, but I find that kinda weird) yells out our reading assignment, competing against the sound of zipping backpacks, and scuffling papers, Eren Jaeger is _that_ medical student who lingers back and chats with the professor.

As I make my escape out of the auditorium doors, we make eye contact. He gives me a wave. As well as a smile.

* * *

The door chimes tinkle.

"Wow, now I'm running into you everywhere I go, Annie Leonhart," Eren remarks, inviting himself to the chair across from me.

I should be annoyed. I've been exposed: my favorite coffeeshop is my favorite coffeeshop because _no one_ goes here, aside from some old guys, who are too busy with their newspapers, and a few engineering grads, who don't bother me anyways because they're noses are buried deep into their mystery math. The last thing I want to deal with, when I'm trying to digest this stupid medical knowledge, is to have to listen to gunners bitching and whining about running low on z's or gossiping about other gunners of the class. And now, the greatest gunner of them all, this Eren Jaeger, has infiltrated the Bean Bar.

"What's your order?" he asks, tapping my empty cup.

"Triple-shot macchiato," I say warily.

"Coming right up." He goes behind the counter, grabbing a fresh mug off of the shelf, and starts preparing my drink. "Uh," he pops his head over the espresso machine, giving me a sheepish smile, "I work here, by the way, so a tip would be cool."

"How long have you been working here?" I ask, moving my books and notes over to the counter. I slide the contents of my pocket towards him: a penny, a gum wrapper, and a paperclip. "I'm a regular, but I've never seen you here until today."

"Stingy, much?" he replies flatly, taking the penny and tossing the trash. He laughs uneasily. "Uh, that's funny because I'm here almost everyday… and I actually do notice _you_. You have a monopoly over that corner table."

"Oops," I answer, shrugging. "I'm not exactly lucid until my third cup, and by then, I'm on my way out."

"I hear you," he says, setting my macchiato down. "A snowflake or a Christmas tree?"

"What?"

"Just pick one."

"Why?"

" _Just pick one._ "

"Uh, a snowflake."

A toothpick between his fingers, he stirs the cream on the surface of my drink once before pushing around the swirls to form an amoeba-shaped image that's supposed to look like a snowflake.

"Fuck, I screwed up," he mutters, tossing the toothpick into the wastebin. "On a good day, I'm a Pablo-fucking-Picasso."

"Picasso's stuff looked vaguely recognizable. And that looks _almost_ like a snowflake, so I guess it's a good day for you." I take a sip. So he's the one who makes the great macchiatos. I've noticed that on some days, my drink sucks. Not enough espresso, too conservative on the sugar, too liberal on the cream. But on some days, it's perfect in every regard. Even though the foam art is a bit subpar today.

"Thanks," he says. "Did you get your paper done?"

I should be annoyed because he's poking into my personal business. I should slink out of this conversation and scour the entire city for another non-med-student-ridden coffee shop and ignore every smile this boy offers, erasing him from my record. But I don't. If anything, I'm more annoyed at myself for not being annoyed.

"With ten minutes to spare, actually. I got a whole ten extra minutes of sleep."

"Sweet." He gives me a fist-bump. "So now," he continues, flashing me a wry grin that stretches from ear-to-ear, "you don't have a lame-ass excuse anymore. I wanna hear the whole Annie Leonhart spiel. Tell me: why are you the biggest pain-in-the-ass in this galaxy?"

"This _universe_ ," I correct him. "I notice things."

"You notice things?"

"Like how you really need to change out of that shirt."

"What? Why? I like this shirt," he retorts, peering down at his light-blue button-down. "It fits me pretty well."

"It doesn't. You have this coffee stain that you keep trying to hide by half-assedly rolling up your sleeve. It's not working, by the way."

"Ouch." He winces, feigning injury. "I didn't expect to get eviscerated like that so soon."

"That was a pinprick."

"Hah, what?"

"Evisceration is many times more lethal."

Eren whistles. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"Who says you're not on my hit-list already?" I deadpan.

"Right when I thought we were gonna be good friends, dammit," he sighs, washing out a dirty mug that was sitting on the counter. "See ya, Connie!" he calls to the bald barista just heading into the blustery street. The door closes with that trademark tinkle.

"So Connie's the shitty barista," I comment, watching him disappear around the corner.

"Huh?" Eren raises an eyebrow. "Bad service? That's weird, he's usually friendly."

"Nah, just bad coffee. You make this macchiato just right."

Another ear-to-ear grin. "Thanks, that's what I like to hear! The secret is to go easy on the cream and let the whole milk do its magic."

"You're lame," I snort, stifling a smile.

"Also, you need to make sure the ratio of espresso-to-milk is _dead-on_ or else it's gonna taste like a latte," he adds facetiously. "We're talkin'—"

"Maybe you should ditch the M.D. road and get a Ph.D. in barista-ology," I cut in, flipping aimlessly through my Anatomy & Physiology book.

And we just banter back and forth like that. No barriers to scale, no walls to smash down. Just easy, fluid conversation. Unlike anyone else, there are no plastic layers to Eren that I need to peer through. He puts himself out in the open. Completely raw and transparent.

"So did you ever call that girl back or did she drain your phone battery?" I ask.

He pauses. A shadow crosses over his eyes. "Um, not quite."

Instantly, I'm on guard again. There's a layer forming over him upon mentioning the caller of last night. A layer made of unbreachable crystal.

"She was…" He struggles for the words. "A really, really good friend of mine until she decided to skip town."

The crystal remains uncracked.

"Some friend," I say.

"Yeah," he responds quietly. "Anyways, we're kinda on the rocks right now, but she stopped about right after you left."

"She seems persistent. I'd expect a Round II later tonight."

"Knowing her, you're probably right," Eren admits, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He takes it black.

"You know where she is?"

"Somewhere in Turkey right now. And then she's headed to Aleppo."

"As in the Syrian city?"

"As in one of the most dangerous places in the world," he answers darkly.

"Damn."

"She's a war correspondent. Tough as nails."

"I'm sure."

So far, Option B seems to be checking out.

"Probably shouldn't have brought that up," I note, suddenly uncomfortable by the quiet. "Sorry."

"Ahah, it's no biggie," he insists, forcing a weak laugh. "I guess I needed to get that out. Uh, hey, listen, so are you free tonight? I was thinking about getting another drink at The Colossus after work. I actually just stumbled upon that place last night, and I gotta say, I'm really digging it."

Shit. I'm smiling. _I'm smiling_. Inwardly, I'm telling myself to cringe, but outwardly, _I'm smiling._ Snap out of it. Now.

Next thing you know, we're chatting until he locks up the Bean Bar. And we're chatting all the way to The Colossus. Well, mostly it's him talking about random things and me listening, but according to Annie standards, this is one of the longest conversations I've held. Ever.

Not once does he mention the war correspondent again. The only time I see him check his phone is to scroll through a news app, searching for something. He comes up short. His smile wavers for a second.

We chat until Bert, hiccuping, informs us that it's time to close. And we chat as he walks me back to my apartment. He tells me that we ought to study together whenever I'm at the Bean Bar, and god, I really should be annoyed that my sacred private place is not longer private, but as the conscience of Annie Leonhart is screaming "fuck off!", my mouth forms the words "yeah, sure, whatever."

* * *

 **A/N:** How did you all like it? Next chapter, we get a glimpse into what Mikasa's thinking, so stay tuned! Please leave some feedback!


	2. The Skeleton

**A/N** : News flash—while we're sitting at home, safe and sheltered, a war rages in Syria. The Syrian conflict is something that we tend to see buried under "bigger" headlines, such as politics, especially in American newspapers. The mass media rarely gives us the whole picture, instead presenting us with a filtered, white-washed version of the horror that unfolds in Syria each day. I really hope to portray the experience of a war correspondent to the best of my ability in this fic, and if any of you wonderful readers spot a mistake/inaccuracy, please let me know! Researching this has been a heavy but important experience.

* * *

 **CHAPTER II | The Skeleton**

 _Mikasa_

A humming noise grows louder.

"Shit, what is that?" Jean growls, twisting backwards in his seat to peer out the back window.

We brace ourselves as our mustard-yellow taxi cab, streaked with dirt stains, rumbles down the rugged road. The driver veers around piles of rubble and dead bodies, swearing loudly in Arabic. Sasha, in shotgun, babbles in her own stilted Arabic, pleading for him to calm down.

Suddenly, it's dark, as if the sun has gone behind a thick cloud, bathing the entire world in a shadow. The humming has escalated to roar.

" _Fuck, it's right over us!"_ Jean screams.

The driver swerves into an alley, smashing into abandoned trash cans, and we're jolted into a joyride-of-horror, yanked forward by momentum, only to be snapped backwards by the blunt force of our seatbelts. Behind us, something drops. A whistling sound. Amidst the violent roller coaster ride of the taxi, through the rearview window, I watch an object plummet to the ground in agonizingly slow motion. It's a barrel, like one of those cartoon silly explosives that you'd see in _Looney Toons_. Right as it makes contact with the ground, it freezes. I can feel my heart pulsing erratically, my blood screaming through my arteries.

And then there's heat. A deafening blast.

The driver swerves again. My head bashes against the side passenger window, and I'm near-positive that I hear a _crack_. I see fire. Reds, oranges, yellows so bright that they appear a lethal white.

All I see is white now. Is this what the entrance to heaven or hell or wherever I'm bound for after life on earth is supposed to look like? I expected a re-run of my life, a montage of all the important things from my life. Entering this world, kicking and screaming. Learning to ride a bike. Watching Mom's pulse on the heart monitor flatten out to a stagnant, unmoving line. Listening to Dad say his last word in a breathy whisper before joining Mom. Meeting _him_. Graduating high school. Getting accepted into college. Having my first kiss. Losing my virginity. Leaving the airport. Regretting everything. Etc., etc. The end credits roll _._ The audience gives me a standing ovation. The curtains close, and finally, I can rest.

But death flat-out rejects my pitch when everything fades to black. There is light. Noise. Screaming. Crying. My eyes snap open, and I'm back in the taxi.

We're alive.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Jean is mumbling, sweat pouring down his neck. His hand is squeezing mine, choking my fingers of circulation.

In the front seats, the cab driver is hyperventilating, driving us in zigzags. Sasha is sobbing, fighting the urge to dry heave.

Everything is clear, and I can think again.

"Everyone, _quiet_!" I shout, clapping my hands together once.

The mumbling, swearing, and sobbing cease. All that can be heard are distant blasts echoing across the city.

"Sasha," I begin slowly. "We need to get back to the base camp. Tell Mr. Nawfal that, okay?"

"Y-yes, Mikasa," she answers, launching into a shaky Arabic request.

I squeeze Jean's hand back, and instantly, he relaxes, coaching himself to take deep, steady breaths of oxygen. The cab nervous tiptoes through Aleppo, a city that was once beautiful and busy but is now a crumbling skeleton, emaciated by toxic years of war.

* * *

He was exhausted from this battle. These endless days of campaigning to him, of convincing him that we'll be okay, that we're ready for this. Screaming matches between him and Jean could be heard from outside the building. Sasha flooded his mailbox with a rainforest's worth of letters, proposals, and essays. Shadows clung beneath his dark, piercing eyes, and his face grew gaunt from stress. But he stuck on through, digging his heels into the ground, despite how hard we tried to yank him out by the roots.

We had no choice but to play our trump card.

We hated doing this. Resorting to these measures that were killing him, inside-out. But there were stories, hidden under that war-torn moonscape, that needed to be unearthed and told to the world.

Professor Levi Ackerman knew that better than anybody.

I sat down with him, bringing him the largest cup of coffee, quadruple-shot, that could be found in Chicago. I listened to his tirade about safety, about life, about youth. I nodded as he rattled off the ever-growing list of journalists who have lost their lives in the line of reporting in Aleppo alone. I let him shout and swear and scream. And then I proposed our ultimatum.

At first, he listened, staring at his Pulitzer prize, framed, in all its glory, above his shelf. There, sandy pebbles from Iran, rugged ore from Russia, and smooth river stones from Afghanistan formed a library of horror stories. Unabridged non-fiction. Midway through my proposal, he gritted his teeth, jumped to his feet, and flung his pen, right into the center of that Pulitzer frame. We stared at that pen, lodged in the cracked glass, perfectly parallel to the ground. After an entire minute, it finally gave in to gravity, tumbling to the shelf, knocking a Libyan rock to the floor. And Levi sighed and sat down.

"You promise me something, Ackerman," Levi began, swiveling around in his chair and propping his legs up on his desk.

"Depends on what the promise is."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine _without_ the cheekiness, thank you very fucking much."

He took a long swig of his coffee, wincing at the instant caffeine rush, and set the cup down carefully. He was sifting. Sifting through his mental thesaurus for the right words, tossing aside ones that were near-bull's eyes but didn't precisely fit the nuance he was going for. Upon choosing the right candidates, he rapped his knuckles against his desk.

"So listen every word that comes out of my mouth, alright?" he said wearily.

"Listening."

"My favorite time of the day was every evening at 11:00PM. I'd have a cup of chamomile, read a few chapters of whatever's on my nightstand, and go to bed. Depending on what I ate for dinner, I'd have these incredible dreams. You know that whole thing with lucid dreaming, where you can trick your brain into conjuring up any dreamscape of your choosing? I figured out how to do that, and I'd be able to do all this incredible stuff like flying and deep-sea diving without worrying about oxygen and that awful ear-popping pressure shit."

He turned to face the Chicago skyline. To the east, Lake Michigan glittered under the setting sun.

"After I went to Rwanda, my favorite part of my day became the most horrific part of my day," he continued, rising to unhook his Pulitzer from the wall. He bent down to scoop up his pen and returned with the cracked frame in his hand, setting the certificate on his desk. "I saw the most fucked up things, things that you'd never imagine a human committing to another human, things that make you anxious walking in this city, surrounded by animals. At the end of the day, that's what we are, Mikasa. When government gets the shaft and that hollow construct known as civilization finally concaves on itself, we are, at the core, _animals_.

"Each night, when I shut out that light, I'm reminded of that fact. I've stuffed myself full with every sleeping pill you can find on the market, but the nightmares always beat out the drugs. I used to fly. But now I plummet down, as missile, and I can see the faces of the people I'm about to obliterate. I used to dive. But now I drown in the blood of people who perished by mankind hands. Sure, I got this fucking piece of paper and that fucking slab of metal that proclaims that I can write shit. I've been sucked into this business as if it's a black hole, and before I realize it, I'm in Russia. Afghanistan. Libya. Iran. Dozens of other versions of hell. Since Rwanda, where it all began, I haven't had one good night's sleep. Not even a damn _wink_.

"Now sure, Erwin-fucking-Smith has hooked you guys up with a Turkish 'contact.' Sure, you guys have solid journalism degrees under your belts. Sure, you guys are some of the boldest brats that UChicago's ever coughed up. But know this," Levi Ackerman pounded his fist against the frame. "Every night, you're gonna dread going to bed."

He paused before finalizing, his voice cracking, "So promise me this: _know when it's time to come home._ "

* * *

Running on fumes, the cab groans to a stop before the Free Syrian Army camp in a nondescript area of Aleppo. The driver, spitting a spray of obscenities towards us, shoos us out. The second I step out of the vehicle, onto the ground, stars flash across my line of sight, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground.

Jean's instantly by my side, helping me to my feet.

"What's the matter?" he asks, brow scrunching with concern.

Gasping, I lean against him for support, clutching my spinning head. A wave of nausea hits me at full force, and I'm reeling over, retching the strange porridge we had for breakfast onto the ground. Sasha offers me some of her meager water supply, but I shake my head.

"Hit my forehead against…" Another wave of nausea leaves me jittery and gasping.

"Dammit, I think you've got a concussion. A bad one, at that," Jean mutters, helping me into the tent.

An army medic rushes to my side, spewing off a list of questions in rapid-fire Arabic, but my mind is too foggy to comprehend anything, even with Sasha stumbling through translation. The world seems to be trapped in gelatin, everything moving at a third of its normal pace. The medic wraps something around my head. Blurry, Jean's face is blurry. Sasha's face is blurry.

The only clear face I can see is _his._

He's here in Aleppo.

But he's leaning over me with this look of immense hurt on his face, the same look that seared into my mind after I let go of him at O'Hare, stepping into the gate. I remember how his hand was frozen in place, grasping onto the ghost of my fingers, how his eyes, those eyes that I fell in love with, pleaded me to stay with him. The flight attendant ripped my ticket. He cried out my name in a voice jagged with desperation, thick with melancholy. I turned around, telling myself that if I met his sad, broken eyes one more time, something in me will set fire to all those dreams of traveling the world and giving people a voice in the global conversation, those dreams that I've cultivated ever since I was a little girl. _Face forward_ , I goaded myself, fighting the tears that threatened to escape down my cheeks. _Chase those dreams. Don't let them slip. Once you've got them in your hands, you'll come home, like you promised Levi._

"I love you."

 _Face forward. Chase those dreams. Don't let them slip._

"Mikasa, I'll love you. Always."

 _Face forward. Chase those dreams._

"Don't ever forget that."

 _Face forward. Face forward, dammit, FACE FORW_ —

I dropped my bags by his feet. The flight attendant's reprimanding was nothing but background noise to me as I pushed him to the side, bringing my lips to his and kissing him like there was no tomorrow. And fuck, those tears won; he was crying, I was crying, letting those salty tears mix together on our cheeks.

"I'm not going," I told him, holding his face close, pledging myself to those eyes, those eyes that I've been in love with for years. "I can't."

As he pulled me into his arms, allowing me to sob into his shirt, the memories went nuclear in my mind. Inhaling his familiar scent, I remembered the aromas of vanilla, citrus, and baking that gave the Jaeger household, my home since I was nine years-old, its identity. Tasting his lips, I remembered running back from our high school anti-homecoming at Burger King, during our senior year of high school, joking and laughing, until all of a sudden, he leaned in and kissed me—but missed by a longshot, getting me on the nose instead. Hearing his heartbeat against his chest, I remembered crying with him as eighteen-year-olds over his mother, who laid cold on the kitchen floor, pressing our ears to her sternum, begging God, Allah, Jesus, or whoever the fuck held the reins of life and death to give us a pulse. Feeling his scarf, I remembered the texture of that red garment that he gave me when we walked out of the hospital and into the cold Chicago winter as kids, his mittened hand in mine; the same scarf that I left hanging in his closet this morning as I said my final goodbyes to his apartment; the same scarf that he happens to be wearing right now, as a quiet but excruciating accusation.

And staring into those eyes—god, those beautiful, loving eyes—I remembered that night after finals during our freshman year of college, when I couldn't bottle it up any longer and told him that I've been in love with him ever since I was a kid, and he'd have to deal with it, to which he laughed and kissed me, properly this time, thanks to many months of diligent practice. And not long after, although paranoia hung over us, for fear that his roommate Armin might stumble in unexpectedly, we made love for the first time. And I remembered when we finished and laid quietly in his bed, my head nestled in the crook of his neck, he broke the silence to tell me that he loved me too, in case I didn't quite get the message.

It was sensory overload. Those journalism ambitious vaporized, too grand and too out-of-reach, and I melted into him, thinking "fuck it" to everything because above all, happiness was right there in the bubble of stability he created.

But he was also the one who popped it.

"I'm not doing this to you," he said, gently freeing me from his embrace. "I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry. You need to go."

"What?"

He shoved my bags into my arms, turning me towards the gate. "Go on," he murmured, pressing his lips to the temple, "this is what you've wanted to do for ages, right?"

Right then, it didn't make any sense anymore. My dream morphed into a delusion, and I saw that gate as the entrance to Hell while here with him was the utter opposite. Right then, I realized that I was insane in the first place, that _he_ was insane for suddenly going along with my delusion.

"No, I'm staying—"

" _No, you're going._ " His voice was firm. Still hurt. But firm.

"Miss?" the flight attendant stepped towards us, gesturing towards the gate to Hell. "We're going to need you to board very soon."

"She'll be there in a sec," he reassured her.

"Wait a minute," I began. "Eren—"

"Mikasa," he cut in, turning me around to kiss me one final time, long and slow, before facing me towards Syria. "Don't look back."

* * *

The haunting rhythm of call-and-response of Aleppo goes like this:

There is a whistle. I am jolted awake.

There is a distant boom. And I scream.

Sasha and Jean are on either side of me, each gripping one hand. For the first time since leaving that O'Hare terminal, I cry. My friends are startled; they've never seen me like this, not even when we saw rows upon rows of children's bodies, cold, bloodied, and lifeless, lined up in a dilapidated hut.

"Our... pr-promise," I manage between sobs. "To... L-Levi."

"Let's go home," Jean answers.

"Home," echoes Sasha.

* * *

 **A/N** : Please leave a comment! Constructive criticism is treasured!


	3. New Year's Eve Eve

**New Year's Eve Eve  
** _Annie_

Eren and I have a pattern going on.

We start each weekday, going about our own business, until 4-5PM, when we regroup at the Bean Bar. There, we chat and study (but mostly chat), before grabbing some nicely discounted dinner and drinks, courtesy of Bert. He walks me home around midnight, which is early for me, but by then, he's yawning. I wrap up whatever studying's left over, watch some late-night TV, and doze off on the couch around my usual 3AM bedtime. My roommate Mina (probably the only person immune to my bullshit) wakes me up around 10AM, right as she's about to leave for work. Again, unless it's Tuesday, and I have to lug myself to that damned 9AM with Dr. Zoe.

But even then, Tuesdays are no longer as agonizing as they used to be.

This whole pattern has been on repeat for the last three months. I'd thought that I'd grow sick of him, like I do with many people.

He has his irritating moments, where he drags out a soapbox and preaches for seemingly hours. One afternoon at the Bean Bar, he asked me what I wanted to specialize in. Trauma surgery, I told him. He asked me why. I told him tackling those nasty ER cases seemed cool. Hardcore, even. Definitely not boring.

"No, no," Eren said, "what's the _real_ reason?"

"I just told you," I said.

"Like, why do you want to be on-call in the dead of night?" he pressed, giving me this intense look.

I felt uncomfortable. "I don't think anyone really wants to be in that position. But it's part of the job," I answered.

His eyes ignited without warning. I was taken aback by his sudden anger. Slamming down the coffee mug he was washing behind the counter, he tore me apart, going off on how I needed a better purpose. He went on and on about resolve and duty and a load of other lofty, pretentious bullcrap. The old guys looked up from their newspapers. The engineering nerds glanced up from their mystery math.

I shut him up by socking him in the jaw and storming home, skipping my nightly martini.

Bert called nervously, wondering if I was sick and needed anything. Mina was surprised to find me on the couch so early.

The next day happened to be a Tuesday. Which sucked. Eren walked right past me, not batting an eye, when he entered Zoe's lecture hall. I avoided the Bean Bar and went straight to The Colossus. I was in such a shitty mood that Bert, sensing the vibes, told me my six drinks were on him. An early Christmas gift, he insisted.

That evening, around midnight, Mina and I were marathoning cringeworthy holiday movies, when we heard a knock. To our knowledge, we didn't order any eleventh-hour pizza this time (for the sole purpose of pissing off Papa John's). Peering through the peephole, Mina called if I knew this dude: "brown hair, mid-height, blue shirt with a coffee stain, freaky bruise on his face.

I told her that I knew no such guy.

Outside, he yelled, "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"Who is he?" Mina whispered, tiptoeing back to the couch. "Another stupid hook-up who's in love with you?"

"I wish," I replied dully, shoveling a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

Eren continued to pound on the door, shouting my name.

"He's gonna wake up the whole floor," Mina said, glancing back at the door.

"That's the point. They'll complain and the landlord's Doberman can chase him out."

"You're cruel."

"Let's be real: you'd love to see it happen. We even have a clear view of the street he'll bolt down."

"Of course not, that's awful!"

"Don't lie to me."

"Okay, fine. As hilarious as that'll be, who the hell is this guy?"

I shrugged.

"Annie," Mina pleaded.

"Classmate," I conceded.

"What did he do to you?" she continued.

"Annoyed the hell outta me."

"Everyone annoys the hell outta you. What did he do?"

"Threw his weight around."

The pounding at the door fell silent. Eren's footsteps shuffled away.

"Sweet, he's gone."

"Maybe he came to apologize?" Mina suggested.

"Nah, my money's on delivering a sequel to the lecture he gave me the yesterday. I hope the bitch rips the back of his pants off." I cranked up the volume of our movie. "We can watch him run home ass-naked."

"How about this?" Mina yanked the remote out of my hand and paused the movie. "Catch him before he's gone and hear him out just for a minute. Like I'll even text you to signal when sixty seconds are up. And if he decides to 'throw his weight around' again, we'll sic Tina on him."

"And get it on film?"

"And get it on film."

"Hm, that's a thought."

"But you have to promise me that you'll actually hear him out."

"I don't make promises."

"You _do_ know that Tina gets cranky when her sleep is disrupted. Remember what happened to the guy downstairs?"

"Fair enough," I sighed, lifting myself up to my feet and throwing a hoodie over my T-shirt.

When I opened the door, he wasn't in the hallway but right by the stairwell, flipping through that favorite news app of his, reading some article. He wore a troubled expression on his face, playing with his scarf. Mina wasn't kidding about the freakish bruise by the corner of his mouth. I almost felt sorry.

"You've got sixty seconds," I told him, perching a few steps above him. "Spit it out."

"Listen, Annie," he began quietly. "I'm sorry I went off on you like that. It's just that something really personal happened to me, relating to that line of work. My dad was an ER surgeon downtown. He dealt with the… for lack of a better word, _messiest_ cases, and when I was nine years-old, he took me to the hospital to show me around for a day. And that day happened to be one of the worst."

We'd fallen back into our rhythm of him talking, me listening. He told me how not ten seconds after the EMT's wheeled in two blood-soaked stretchers, Dr. Jaeger recognized these two as his closest friends. People that he grew up with in Evanston. They were husband and wife, walking through town that evening, when a car, running a red light, hit them on a crosswalk. Eren told me how he peered over the front desk, watching as the heart monitor began beeping erratically on the woman's monitor, how staff swarmed around that stretcher, switching immediately into CPR. (Mina texted me right around here, but I ignored her.) Shocks were administered, but all he could see over the flurry of activity was that flatline. The other doctors insisted that they call it, but Eren's father persisted with chest compressions, screaming at the monitor to give him _any_ indication of life. Nothing. An hour later, the woman's husband joined her.

"My dad was the very last line of defense," Eren said, pulling at his scarf. What a strange habit. "That's why I'm going into emergency medicine. Your job is to stand at the edge of a cliff and save people from falling over the edge. You're the last guardrail before it's all over."

He apologized for sounding like such a condescending brat. He said that he was out of line. That I had every right to land him that bruise.

I told him it was all good. No grudges held. For once.

A silence ensued.

I invited him to trash Christmas movies with us. He thanked me for understanding, managing a grin, despite wincing from the masterpiece I left on him. But he had somewhere to be.

From my window, I watched him head down the street, the light of his phone screen shrinking with each step before disappearing into the darkness.

I thought that incident would throw a wrench in our… _friendship_ —which is a word that feels a bit strange to say, but I'm slowly getting accustomed to it—but if anything, it opened the door to topics that we both felt better steering the light away from.

Thereafter, he talked about his dad some more. And his mother. About how exactly nine years later, on that last day of December, his mother clutched at her chest. Reeling to the ground. Gasping. Reaching towards the tabletop that seemed to loom a hundred feet over her, to dial 9-1-1. He talked about how he entered his home, which was eerily silent. About how he hated himself for spending an extra hour on the soccer field when he could've caught her before she hit the ground. And he talked about how his father was so grief-stricken that he couldn't stay in Chicago anymore. After dropping Eren off for college, Dr. Jaeger flew to Venezuela to join Médecins Sans Frontières. Doctors Without Borders. Eren receives emails from his father once a month. Or so he was promised.

With each "see ya" at the front door of my apartment building, the window to his personal narrative opened just a sliver wider. And weirdly enough, I haven't grown sick of him. Yet.

It's been three months since he sat down at The Colossus for the first time. He told me that he'd be gone for the week of Christmas, spending the holidays with an old friend who's just returned to Evanston from an internship in NYC.

Since the 23rd, I've been bored. So. Fucking. Bored. Mina and I got sick of trolling Papa John's, so we decided make Domino's our new victim. The delivery girl seemed too cheerful, all ruddy and giggling, so that wasn't any fun.

On Christmas Eve, we took a temporary hiatus and set our sights on this dingy little kosher place a few blocks away. Another buzzkill. The guy screamed " _FUCK OFF!_ " into the phone before we had a chance to order the most complicated thing on the menu.

On Christmas Day, Mina woke me up by popping a bottle of champagne. Her Christmas present to me. She hugged me, thanking me for the pocketbook of savage comebacks that I slipped under the wilting aloe plant on the kitchen table (though knowing her, I highly doubt she'll use any of those witty remarks). Yesterday, before we got an earful from the kosher restaurant, she'd cut out a star (?) from a yellow advertisement and taped it the least-droopy leaf. The leaf collapsed by noon.

The days after, I decided to capitalize on the post-Christmas discounts and scoured the stores for… something. I found some options, but for the life of me, I couldn't whittle down my choices. I was between a mug printed with an swear words in bajillion different languages, a pillowcase emblazoned with an obnoxious slogan, and a grey-ish-blue scarf and mitten set.

On the 28th, I sat in the store for an hour, staring at my options. I got many weird looks from the cashier.

By the 29th, someone had already taken the pillowcase. I sat for another hour. The cashier approached me, but one glare sent him scurrying.

As two hours ago, today the 30th, only the scarf and mittens were left. A part of me wanted to hunt them down the buyer of the mug and wrest that glorious artifact from his/her hands. But another part of me praised them making my life marginally easier. The cashier rang me up faster than I can blink.

I went to the bar soon after. And I'm now chatting with Bert. Or a more accurate way to put it is that I'm now enduring yet another one of his attempts at small-talk by recalling some important things that've happened as of late. Still, he seems more comfortable, bashfully telling me about how he found a new apartment. It's also his birthday, apparently.

A twenty-something slips into the stool beside me, asking if he can buy me a drink. I tell him, go for it. I use this as a license to order some Scotch that's probably twice my age. The dude chokes a little but obliges. Then, something I say (thankfully) makes him leave. Score one for Annie.

And I sit here, drinking. Drinking because there's nothing better to do. First semester is over. I've still got that 3.7—which, to be exact, has bumped up to a 3.78. There's nothing to worry about in the time being, but for some stupid reason, I'm not at ease. I keep glancing over at the door, my heart rate escalating whenever someone enters.

"Another martini," I slur to Bert, after forcing down the Scotch. Note to self: _never again._

"Uh, you sure?" he asks. In my hazy vision, I see him scrunch up his brow in something that looks like worry. Then again, he's been worried from the moment he was conceived.

I shrug. "I'll pay full price."

"Don't sweat it," he mumbles, pouring my glass to the brim and dunking in an olive.

"You rock."

I sit there, drinking and drinking. The clock ticks away.

11:30.

12:00.

12:20.

12:40.

12:50.

12:55.

12:57.

1:00.

Finally, after minutes, hours, and days of agonizing boredom, the door squeaks open. The room crackles with electricity. I forget how to breathe. A wintry draft rushes into the bar. The door slams behind him.

"Hey," Eren says with a small smile, sliding right beside me. "Long time no see."

"No kidding," I reply, cracking a whip over my erratic heart rate. Stop being stupid. Relax.

He's wearing his UChicago sweatshirt. The same one here wore when I first met him. Some white flurries have landed softly on his hair, soon to meet their end as liquid droplets. That red scarf of his, the one that he picks at when he's nervous, presumably from his alma mater, is coiled around his neck like always, looking old and tired.

"Hey… I got you s… something," I say, stumbling over my words like a moron, fumbling for the shopping bag somewhere around my feet.

"Damn, Annie," he laughs. "You're wasted, and it's not even New Year's Eve yet."

My foot hooks around the handle of the bag, and I fish it up into my hands. He laughs even more.

"So I got you—"

"Wait, one request," he says. "It's not fun when I'm sober and you're clearly not, so let me cover some ground. How many drinks have you had?"

"Like… three?"

"Bert?"

"Eight," the bartender corrects mournfully from the other end of the bar.

"Shit," Eren replies, impressed. "Eight shots then, Bert. Fireball."

"Oh my god," Bert mutters, coming over with a platter of eight shot glasses. He pours the vile, red whiskey into each before disappearing to fetch a mop and bucket in advance.

"Don't worry, I've been on a two-year vomit-free streak," Eren calls after him. "Anyhow, I just gotta get through today, and abusing my liver helps pass the time. So tell me," he takes his first shot, tipping his head back, scrunching up his face as the fireball makes his way down his esophagus, "what've you been up to this week?"

He takes a second shot as I try to recall everything, as I had earlier today. But I'm drawing a blank. Nothing _noteworthy_ has happened. Nothing that has imprinted itself into my fuzzy memory.

A third shot.

"I did some shopping," I tell him.

He swallows #4. "Oh, and one more request," he adds after resisting the urge to gag. "I get to go first after these last four disgusting shots."

A fifth.

"Why's that?" I ask.

Bert reappears, setting his precautionary measures against the wall before attending to another customer. "If you can, take your imminent projectile vomit outside."

Eren gives him a thumb's-up. A sixth.

"Because," he says, urging himself to swallow a seventh, "in another minute, I'm pretty sure…" He hiccups.

From afar, Bert tenses. All clear. We both break out into uproarious laughter. Like not stifled giggling but obnoxious guffawing. I'm that drunk.

"So," he continues, handing me something messily wrapped. "As I was saying—fuck, I can feel the hangover hitting just about… _now._ Anyways, after this last disgusting fireball, I have a feeling I'm gonna drop it, and it's gonna break, so please, Annie, relieve me of this responsibility." With that, he takes his eighth and slams the glass down.

Carefully, I unwrap his gift. I see a handle. A rim. Korean Hangul. Chinese characters. Arabic script. The words "FUCK OFF." No way.

"Are you serious?" I stare in awe at the same mug that I debated over for hours this past week.

"It does this thing thing where if you fill it up with hot coffee, the _fuck_ 's disappear, and you can learn how to say _shit_ in a shit-ton of tongues," he says, slurring slightly.

"I'm glad I got you this instead because I was looking at the same exact mug," I reply breathlessly. I pull out the mittens first. "Because frostbite and amputated fingers suck."

"Agreed."

"Also, they're easier to don when you're wasted," I add, swatting him in the face with a mitten. "Putting on gloves, on the other hand, is no easier than doing linear algebra."

That ear-to-ear grin of his makes an appearance for the first time tonight.

"And with that," I reach in and pull out the remaining garment, "I decided to get you a new scarf. The one you're wearing looks like it's from the American Revolution."

He stares at the scarf. He blinks once. Twice. He looks at me with those eyes of his that lean more green-ish when he's happy, more blue-ish when he's not. I see the latter. Mixed with confusion and liquor. I see pain, raw and undiluted. Gingerly, he takes the mittens first. Then the scarf. And swaying, drunk and disoriented, he lumbers towards the exit.

I follow after him, throwing my coat over me. I find him across the street, staring through the glass of an electronics store. There's news footage. Images of explosions in the Middle East. Refugees in tatters looking sadly into the camera. In one hand, he is holding my scarf to his chest; in the other, he's yanking at the red one. As if it's suffocating him.

"Eren?"

He looks at me. I see blue. Something inside of him is screaming, but those screams are gagged, muffled, and muted. I am more than familiar with how that feels.

"What's going on?"

He takes an unsteady step towards me.

"Eren, talk to me."

"I've missed you," he says.

"...What?"

Everything's fuzzy and spinning, and I can't feel the icy sidewalk under me. I see a streetlamp. A mailbox. The TV screens. Every neuron in my brain is firing, howling at me to get the hell out of there. But I'm frozen as he takes another step forward, his eyes meeting mine directly.

Something buzzes. Something in his pocket glows to life.

He lets it buzz. He lets it glow.

His eyes are blue, so blue.

My legs declare independence. Mowing down every red flag raised by Rational Annie, I take a step forward, standing so close to him that our noses are just a millimeter from touching. My hand reaches to touch his face. Stop, Annie. Stop where you are. But I can't stop because my body is moving as if I was possessed by some otherworldly son-of-bitch. Fuck.

And I'm kissing him. I'm kissing Eren Jaeger.

Something buzzes. Something in his pocket glows to life.

He lets it buzz. He lets it glow.

* * *

The rest is a blur. Like seeing things through the window of a car doing 80 mph.

I follow him down the street. Down several blocks, around a few corners. Every so often, under a streetlamp, he stops to press his lips against mine. Not a single word exchanged between us.

We enter a building. In its elevator, ignoring the flickering light, he pins me against the corner, kissing me at a feverish pace. His tongue spars with mine; I'm struggling to keep up with him. My hands find their way into his pants. I brush against the bulge in his underwear. Rational Annie, by now, has jumped ship.

 _Ding._

Still kissing, we stumble out of the elevator. He leads the way to a room at the end of the hall. At the same time, his hands run down my upper torso. Down until they're gripping my ass. Pressing me against his groin. My fingers run under his sweatshirt. Learning the lean terrain of his back. Scaling his shoulder blades. He digs into his pockets. Withdraws his keys, jingling them as he searches for the right one. After about seven drunken attempts, three of which were mine, we get into his apartment.

In his bedroom, my top is tossed to the ground. Along with my leggings and jacket. My bra. And my panties. I loop the red scarf from over his head, kissing him once before, kissing him again after. To the ground it goes. He drops the blue scarf and the mittens onto his nightstand. He removes his sweatshirt. His jeans.

On his mattress, he is kissing me everywhere. My mouth. My jawline. My neck. My breasts. My stomach. Between my legs. My toes curl, and my fingers clench his sheets. His fingers know where to touch. A gasp escapes. Right before I peak, he stops. Not a tragic coincidence but a purposeful move. He positions himself over me. This is a play ingrained into his muscles. Each movement. Each inflection.

Then he does this thing that baffles me.

Before he enters me… he kisses my nose.

Something buzzes on the ground. Something in his pocket glows to life.

He lets it buzz. He lets it glow.

* * *

I wake up with a throbbing headache. An enormous blank space in my memory between now and roughly lunchtime yesterday. The classic hangover.

I see a nightstand. Mittens and a scarf. Blue atop a pile of highlighted magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and an overturned picture frame.

Red on the ground. A gray UChicago sweatshirt. My black, lacy bra.

Something snores softly beside me. Correction: someone. I peer over to find—

 _Holy shit_.

Eren. Eren Jaeger.

I ransack my memory for any recollection of the night before, but I only come up with a single word, some foreign phrase I've never heard before.

Then it hits me.

I take the articles and clippings from the nightstand. I skim graphic, detailed coverage from Aleppo. Vivid, unabridged descriptions of war. Headlines like "The Barrel Bomb Claims Lives of Dozens." Titles like "Charting the Mediterranean: A Refugee's Flight from Hell." I turn the picture frame over. It's a photo of Eren kissing this girl on the cheek. He looks several years younger than now. A college student undecided on his major. The girl's eyes are shining in mid-laugh. A faint blush along her nose. His red scarf spills across her shoulders. I slip the photo out of the frame. Dark hair, dark eyes. Someone I'd probably want to shove out a window. On the back, I see this message, lettered out in black pen:

 _I can't believe you guys made me take this. Just wanted to rub it in again: CALLED IT. Ten years ahead of you._

 _Your favorite third wheel,  
Armin_

My heart rate is being stupid again. So is my blood pressure. But I can't help it.

I reach for his jeans. I tug his phone out of his pocket. It's at 3%, but I can see that he had three missed calls last night from Dusseldorf, Germany. Dusseldorf. I flip back through the clippings. There it is, circled in red pen in an article published last week.

I lean over, borrowing his hand, careful not to wake him. I gently press his thumb against the home button of his phone. I'm granted access. I flip through his call log for other random calls that he never returned. There's one from Thessaloniki, Greece. A week ago. Right there, highlighted in the "Charting the Mediterranean" article.

Shit.

I shove the evidence back onto his nightstand, the photo back into the picture frame. I go to his contacts. I scroll down the alphabet.

Shit.

I don't dare go to his photos. Or his text messages. Already, I'm kicking myself hard. Berating myself for letting this curiosity fester for so long.

That single word that remains from last night. That foreign phrase.

 _Mikasa._

It's neither a word nor a phrase.

 _Mikasa_.

It's a name.

The writer of those clippings. The identity of the callers from Dusseldorf and Thessa-however-you-pronounce-it. The girl he's kissing. The girl he loves.

 _Mikasa._

It's her name.

* * *

 **A/N** : How did you all like it? Flip-flopping between Mikasa and Annie's POV's is actually one of the most fun things I've ever done because they're both so different yet their personalities overlap in certain aspects. Please leave a comment/feedback!


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